Some of you are already aware of this, but we're getting close to launching the manga version of ゆきの物語. The first 7 pages (first 2 chapters) can be read here, with vocabulary for the first 4 pages. We plan on adding a page a week after the official launch. If you want to see any tweaks to the viewer, now's the time to put in your requests.

So everyone please enjoy reading this and let Rich (and Lily!) know how much you enjoy their work!

Apparently this is ranked about pre-intermediate to intermediate difficulty for the Japanese version of the pages, but there are English translations of every page available that you can toggle just by clicking the image of the page.

I have only one question/resquest. Wouldn't it be possible to put the vocabulary/grammar part running on the side of the manga panel? Like on the right or left of the image? It's very annoying having to scroll up and down to check something and then losing where you were. Unfortunately this still happens a bit with me, specially on the pages where there's more Kanji, and it becomes quite tiring and a bore to read, even though I really like the story and art.

Will do! Thank you! And the bar, if on the side, could be smaller. Like, hmm, the sidebars on blogs and such for example. Something like that, so it takes up less space and such. I'm sure you already thought of something like this...

Shiroisan wrote:Even now it's only 9 pages? In manga terms that's hella short. That's like a paragraph worth of text.

Each chapter comprises several pages of manga. We already have the first 28 pages or so of the manga version done (which comprises several chapters), not to mention that there are 93 chapters of the actual original story.

So think something like 300 pages of manga that could likely be done at the very least.

Hence the reason we said to keep checking back as we hope to add pages about once a week.

Rich wrote up a description of the whole original story and manga etc that will likely in part end up in the TJP newsletter that Clay will be sending out sometime in the near future...

RichVH wrote:Yuki's Story - Yuki no Monogatari in Japanese - started out as a writing exercise to improve my Japanese, and evolved into a novel aimed at mid-level to advanced students of Japanese that eventually reached 93 chapters, plus the start of a sequel before I got distracted into other things. The complete novel and what there is of the sequel can be read at:http://www.citlink.net/~richvh

Clay Boutwell of The Japan Shop and The Japanese Page has been very supportive of this project, and he and his wife have recorded audio and combined that with read-along video for the first few chapters. That this hasn't been extended further is entirely my fault for not providing them with official text and translations for the later chapters.

In August 2009, I happened to meet Lily Cernak at the New Jersey State Fair. She is a young artist who is a 4th generation Japanese-American, granddaughter of Nisei who were interned during WWII. She was also studying Japanese and had read the parts of Yuki's Story that Clay had put in The Japan Shop. When I said I was interested in making a manga version, she expressed interest in drawing it.

After clearing up some financial difficulties so I could afford to pay for her services, we started work on the manga conversion the next spring, which at the current date (Feb. 4, 2012) has reached 28 pages covering most of the first 6 chapters. Meanwhile Justin Stressman, Clay's webmaster, started work on the pages to display it, and I put together vocabulary lists for the first few pages. We're finally ready for launch.

My hope is that eventually the manga version will generate enough revenue to cover Lily's services, but for now it continues to be a labor of love for me.

We wanted to get a bit ahead with the pages so that we'd have a reliable pool to release from each week... giving ourselves a bit of a buffer (since Rich is paying Lily to work on these out of his own pocket, and in case other "real life" issues come up that cause delays in Lily's ability to work on the manga etc.)

And of course you can always read the original story here up to chapter 19 including Clay's wife Yumi reading each chapter... or on Rich's own personal website (where he has all 93 chapters of the first book, and the beginning of the second book up to chapter 7 so far)... if you really want to read the story and can't wait for the manga pages to come out to have it visually presented.

Think in webcomic terms instead of print manga. We're aiming for one page a week, not one chapter (~20 pages, depending on manga and chapter) of a manga published in like Jump or Shonen Sunday. We stalled for quite a while waiting for Justin to have the time to get the web script straightened out, but should be putting up a page a week going forward. (By the way, Justin... what day have you chosen for updates? That should be somewhere prominent.)

We might be able to have more frequent updates sometime in the future, but that's going to depend on 1) enough income from ads, donations and whatnot to cover paying Lily, and 2) Lily's workload.

Also, chapter lengths tend to be greater further into the original novel (script for chapter 6 reached 8 pages, and it's far from the longest chapter), so I'd guess total length to be closer to (or even much over) 600 pages for the first novel than 300.

I think we've chosen Friday (that was the consensus in the chat when I took an informal poll).

I'm going to get the vocab includes in there for the next couple chapters you sent me tonight so they'll be read when the pages go up. I might just throw page 10 up tonight with the updated vocab to make up for the update that would have been done 2 days ago while we were sorting this out.

richvh wrote:Is there some way you can automate the posting of the new page?

Not unless I did things totally differently and each new page was a new separate article etc... then I could schedule them. But with the pages laid out on a single page I have to edit that page to add the new content.

If you have the opportunity to go to MangaNext at the Sheraton Meadowland in East Rutherford, NJ (last day is Sunday, tomorrow) you can meet Lily Cernak, the artist for Yuki in Artist Alley. She has some of the not yet on the web pages for Yuki with her in her portfolio. (She let me know only a couple days ahead of time, and it didn't occur to me to post about it before leaving today; I will not be there tomorrow.)